Paulo Bento was without Ricardo Carvalho through injury, so Pepe was partnered by Bruno Alves. Joao Pereira came in at right-back, and the midfield trio was the three Ms.

Egil Olsen played his usual 4-5-1 system, with the expected XI. John Carew was upfront, and Vadim Demidov came in at the back for his first start in the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign.

The game was simultaneously extremely predictable and quite exciting. The two sides have vastly different styles of football – Portugal have skilled technical players, but a classic problem with potency upfront, and a secondary problem with creativity from midfield. On the other hand, Olsen always favours men behind the ball, before launching quick breaks with direct passes forward.

Shapes

Portugal used a 4-3-3 system, with two wingers coming inside, and attacking full-backs. Raul Meireles played deep in midfield and had time on the ball to distribute intelligently forward, whilst Cristiano Ronaldo played slightly narrower than Nani on the opposite side.

Olsen’s system is never quite a pure 4-5-1, because he likes to use one wide midfielder (Morten Gamst Pedersen) and one player who is a winger-cum-second striker (Erik Huseklepp). Huseklepp plays higher up the pitch and makes diagonal runs inside, so Bjorn Helge Riise had to move out to the right to cover that flank when Portugal broke quickly. This was a slight worry, with Ronaldo and Fabio Coentrao down Portugal’s left.

Battles

With Norway content to drop deep and favouring a zonal system of defence, the game was not so much about individual battles according to the formations. It was more about two factors – (a) whether Portugal had the creativity to break down Norway and (b) whether Norway’s transitions were good enough to cause a threat on the break.

With Norway defending quite deep and narrow, Portugal were keen to get the ball wide quickly. Ronaldo looked to come inside and shoot but was quickly surrounded by players, and Nani was more involved early on down the right. The 3 v 3 battle in the centre made things congested in that zone and Portugal rarely looked like creating chances from that part of the pitch, although the long-range ability of Meireles and Carlos Martins (plus the two wingers coming inside) meant Norway had to close down quickly. Carew played left-of-centre up against Pepe, so the Real Madrid player was unable to bring the ball out of the back, as he often does to create an extra man in midfield.

Norway breaks

Despite spending most of the game on the edge of their own box, Norway had a couple of great chances in the first half when they stormed forward quickly. Carew was barely involved in the game, and Pedersen didn’t play particularly well, but Huseklepp was a threat down the right – he had a good early chance on the counter, and also combined well with Bjorn Helge Riise, who played a very energetic game and made good ‘underlapping’ runs inside Huseklepp.

With Carew marshalled well by Pepe, diagonal ball were the key for Norway in getting up the pitch, and they were fortunate to have Henning Hauger free ahead of their back four – he was usually in space, and had time on the ball (plus a clear vision of what was ahead of him) to sweep passes wide.

Portugal variation

It was mainly Portugal with the ball, however. Whilst their general strategy means that the typical deep-and-narrow defensive approach should work well against them (as sides play against Arsenal and Barcelona, for example) Portugal are comfortable crossing from wide areas – and it was their willingness to centre the ball that paid dividends.

In Postiga, Portugal have a forward who can get himself on the end of crosses (and also one who is comfortable coming deep, but with the Norweigan defenders letting him go free and a lack of ‘llegada’ from the Portuguese midfielders, this wasn’t so useful). They also have Ronaldo, who can come inside as a second striker and has a superb leap, and this meant that they could knock the ball out to Nani, an excellent crosser, and have two good targets in the centre. Nani didn’t have a great game overall, but his low cross for Postiga just after half time put Portugal into the lead.

1-0

The situation at 1-0 was slightly odd, because Olsen was concerned about the head-to-head situation in the group (this is used as the decider for teams level on points, rather than goal difference, and Norway won the previous meeting between the sides 1-0) and so Norway didn’t really push forward much at 1-0.

In fact, the tactics for both sides remained the same until the final whistle. Substitutions were like-for-like, and Norway continued to sit back in their own half and wait for Portugal to come onto them – which they didn’t always do. Portugal’s midfielders sat deeper and Norway couldn’t counter, so their build-up play was a little less basic. The introduction of Mohammed Abdellaoue for Carew also meant hitting the ball long quickly wasn’t such an option.

The Norweigan full-backs got forward a couple of times, and the away side won their first corner in stoppage time, but the scoreline never looked likely to change after Postiga’s goal.

Conclusion

We knew what to expect here, and we got it. A game very similar to the first meeting between the sides produced another narrow home win.

Bento’s side played well, but the midfield zone still doesn’t feel right. With Meireles, Moutinho and Martins, there are three decent users of the ball – but not enough attacking threat, nor a true holding player to prevent opposition counter-attacks down the centre. It’s the same problem ZM identified before last summer’s World Cup – “on the Venn diagram of what they (the midfielders) bring to the side, there’s too much crossover.” As if to prove the point, Meireles was playing as Portugal’s most attack-minded midfielder when that article was written, and here played as the deepest of the three…

Norway were classic Norway, and we discovered little that we didn’t know before this game. They’ll have been disappointed to have conceded a goal from a cross, as they are generally very good at penalty box defending. Still, along with Portugal and Denmark they are on ten points and joint top of Group H, and arguably have the best run of remaining fixtures of those three sides, so remain in a very strong position.

Last time around it was Portugal, Denmark and Sweden in the same group; now it’s Portugal, Denmark and Norway.

Riccardo on June 5, 2011 at 5:26 pm

Good article ZM! What do you think of Portugal’s chances next year, assuming they qualify? There seems to be too many average players in the starting line up these days for them to be a top class international side. They are crying out for a Rui Costa type player.

I’ve seen some talk here about the 4-3-3 and I must say it’s my favourite formation since it’s historically the formation of my club (FC Porto) and national team (Portugal). I think it’s a pretty good, ofensive formation that is great if you have good wingers.

It has some problems however:

1-The lack of a good striker. If you don’t have an excellent no. 9 (Portugal doesn’t) or if your best striker is unavailable for some reason (it happened for Porto this season during the near 2-month injury of Falcao) your attack will be affected.

2-Offensive midfield. The 4-3-3 midfield is a midfield in which mpst classic no. 10 can’t play, because they’re unconfortable playing so deep on the pitch. And although this formation can work without a creative midfielder, you need one offensive, creative midfielder that has no problem in playing a little bit deep than norma. Well, that’s hard to find. Portugal (and Porto) had a wonderful player a couple of years ago that played in this position – Deco. He was simply magician in passing, driblling, organizing the attack, organizing the defence, scoring goals by himself (and even scoring free kicks). He is gone by now. Barça has 2 players for this, let’s call it the number ‘8′position – Xavi and Iniesta. Maybe that’s why it works so good with them.

I belive Portugal’s main problem is the striker. If they had a good one, they would be main contenders for the European crown next year, assuming they qualify. And I say this, because Norway has shown they are a team to be count on and did very well plying on the counter although there was also some displency from the Portuguese defence I think. Maybe they missed R.Carvalho. It’s not like B.Alves isn’t good (he’s great), it’s simply because Carvalho is superb.

Sindre on June 5, 2011 at 5:26 pm

I thought Gamst Pedersen had a decent match. Defensively he let Pereira get away from him a few times on the overlap, but usually recovered well in EBJT-fashion. Offensively his cross field balls were at the heart of 80% of Norwegian counter attacks in the first half, trying to catch Coentrao out of position/exposing Ronaldo’s lack of tracking back. The 63m hollywood ball to Huseklepp prior to Gamsten’s big chance was terrific, as was a few of his cross-field to BHR who sadly didn’t have the quality to do much with them.

The biggest problem defensively for Norway came when the Portuguese left midfield (Ronaldo, Coentrao, or Moutinho) hit a 40m cross field to Pereira or Nani. It usually meant that Grindheim/Gamst had shifted over and was caught a bit out of position leaving Riise to handle both players. Then again, Gamst usually recovered solidly.

Great analysis though. Always fun to see Norway featured. You also seem to have quite a few Norwegian followers.

Hello ZM. First of all, I’d like to say congratulations on the website, it has really increased my passion for the game and tactics. I am a regular visitor ZM. It has been on my bookmarks for a while now If only i had discovered this website during the world cup.

Anyway my question is, now that the major competitions are over, are you going to do some overall write ups like last year?

I am really interested in your final opinions such as
How Man U won the epl with (IMO) one of their weakest squads in a while?
Where Arsenal just too young/Immature?
Where Chelsea too old?
Whats next for Man city?
Barcelona?
Italian teams lack of width?

I could go on and on, I just feel as if the season is still going because I haven’t seen an end of season write up

alain on June 6, 2011 at 5:37 pm

portugal’s formation looks like a lop-sided w-m, no?

ricky on June 6, 2011 at 8:48 pm

nice article

Wolfpack on June 8, 2011 at 2:05 pm

Zonal Marking, in the World Cup is was a lot of talk about the 4-2-3-1 being the trend formation, but this year we see both club and national sides enjoying great success with variations of what we used to call 4-3-3 (4-1-2-3).

Barca won the CL, Porto won every contest they approached, including the EL. Portugal beat Spain 4-0 with the 4-3-3 formation, Norway closing down Portugal with a 4-3-3(4-5-1). Guus Hiddinck (one of my favourite coaches) using it with considerable success with Turkey.

What about a fresh 4-3-3 analysis, where you look at a couple of the most exiting club and national sides and how they make the most of this formation. What type of players seem most effective in the different positions, how they interact to create and close down space etc. Tactical points vs the most common other formations such as 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1.

Much have been said about Barca, but a deep analysis of Andre Villa Boas Porto would have been most welcome, along with maybe some national team of your choice?

Wolfpack on June 8, 2011 at 2:19 pm

I would say the difference in passing and dribling skills between Norway and Portugal is similar in the difference between Barcelona and Manchester United (or rest of the world if you like).

With that in mind, would it not be fair to ask if Sir Alex (and other coaches) could have something to learn from Mr. Olsen?

Norway kept Portugal from creating chances and they even created 2 great ones themselves with quick counter attacks. Normally they do not concede goals like the one they did against Portugal. Vadim Demidov got the nod as centre back only due to Kjetil Wæhler getting sick before the match, and he let Postiga score from a 1 vs 3 situation inside the box, where Norway normally have total controll.

Norway could easily have won a draw and with just a little bit of luck won the game 1-0 or 2-1, had they defended to their usual standards where Postiga scored and at the same time been 50 or 100% percent effective from their 2 great chances.